EHang launches new version of 216 AAV as a new aerial firefighting solution

EHang has announced the launch of a new ver­sion of its 216 aer­i­al autonomous vehi­cle (AAV), which has been specif­i­cal­ly designed for tack­ling fires in high-rise build­ings — demon­strat­ing the com­pa­ny’s abil­i­ty to com­mer­cialise its tech­nol­o­gy for var­i­ous appli­ca­tions.

Known as the EHang 216F, EHang demon­strat­ed its capa­bil­i­ty to extin­guish a high-rise fire at a recent glob­al launch cer­e­mo­ny in Yun­fu, Chi­na. It can reach a max­i­mum flight alti­tude of 600 meters, car­ry­ing up to 150 litres of fire­fight­ing foams and six fire extin­guish­er bombs on a sin­gle trip. 

The 216F uses a vis­i­ble light zoom cam­era to quick­ly iden­ti­fy the loca­tion of fire; it then hov­ers pre­cise­ly in posi­tion and uses a laser aim­ing device to fire (in suc­ces­sion) a win­dow break­er, the fire extin­guish­ing ‘bombs’ and then a full-range spray of fire­fight­ing foam.

EHang’s Founder, Chair­man and CEO, Huazhi Hu said: “We are pleased to intro­duce the EHang 216F AAV aer­i­al fire­fight­ing solu­tion, which solves dif­fi­cult chal­lenges in high-rise fire­fight­ing.

“The high-rise fire use case high­lights the prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion of our pas­sen­ger-grade AAV plat­form to dif­fer­ent smart city man­age­ment needs. The poten­tial of our intel­li­gent AAV tech­nol­o­gy plat­form is bound­less. We will explore and devel­op more aer­i­al solu­tions and use cas­es to empow­er smart cities.”

EHang says the 216F can become an essen­tial piece of equip­ment for thou­sands of fire sta­tions across Chi­na, after a sur­vey by Chi­na Fire Mag­a­zine revealed 233,000 fires were report­ed nation­wide in 2019, with 6,974 cas­es hap­pen­ing in high-rise build­ings. It rep­re­sents a year-on-year growth of 10.6 per cent.

EHang 216Fs are expect­ed to be deployed in urban fire sta­tions to assist in fire­fight­ing with­in a 5km radius.  EHang’s autopi­lot and cen­tral­ized man­age­ment tech­nolo­gies also enable a fleet of EHang 216Fs to be remote­ly dis­patched for first response, even before fire­fight­ers arrive on the scene.

Weiqiang Chen, Head of a Fire Sta­tion in Yun­fu, said: “Fire­fight­ing and res­cue is a race against death. By tak­ing advan­tage of the rapid response and cen­tral­ized man­age­ment of the EHang AAV plat­form, we can great­ly improve the effec­tive­ness of our efforts.

“EHang’s intel­li­gent aer­i­al fire­fight­ing solu­tion can effec­tive­ly solve dif­fi­cult prob­lems in fight­ing high-rise fires.  This com­ple­ments exist­ing fire­fight­ing sys­tems and will improve society’s abil­i­ty to respond to emer­gen­cies.”

The height of fire res­cue lad­ders and the reach of fire noz­zles are usu­al­ly less than 50 meters, and their oper­a­tions are often lim­it­ed to one side of a build­ing. As high-rise build­ings are often locat­ed in urban cen­tres, road traf­fic can sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase response times. 

EHang says its intel­li­gent aer­i­al fire­fight­ing solu­tion pro­vides a bet­ter alter­na­tive for deal­ing with high-rise build­ing fires. With a ful­ly-equipped 216F AAV and the com­pa­ny’s com­mand-and-con­trol sys­tem, addi­tion­al ser­vices as well as fire­fight­ing include inves­ti­ga­tion and res­cue and emer­gency man­age­ment.